Why Rochelle Bright's Story Is "Quite A Heartbreaker"

"Being a Kiwi, and I think Aussies are similar too, we don't talk about anything," says Rochelle Bright, before offering a single, sheepish huh. Then a laugh.

"And particularly that generation, that generation of the '60s, they don't talk about anything. I was very lucky — unfortunately, my dad passed away; it's been over 20 years now — and because I look a lot like my father a lot of family would always tell me things about him and tell me stories. There was more openness to talk about my dad, and as a storyteller you keep asking questions all the time."

"They were quite evocative shots of each of the places they went to, and my dad also wrote a bunch of letters to my mum..."

The story that emerged was a remarkable one, a fated meeting of two generations in a daffodil field down by the lake in Hamilton, of love young and old. It wasn't just the oral reminisces from which Bright built her play; archival film footage of Bright's parents' wedding, travel photography by her father, love letters he wrote to her mother, and the hits of New Zealand indie-pop both informed and feature in Daffodils.

"My dad was quite a good amateur photographer, so one of the big things in the '60s and '70s a lot of New Zealanders would go on big what we call OEs — which is basically 'overseas experiences' — and they would go on these cruise liners to Europe and see all the sights. And my dad took a lot of photos, which we use as slides, and they're quite awesome, and a lot of the show's quite inspired by those images; they're not random shots, they were quite evocative shots of each of the places they went to, and my dad also wrote a bunch of letters to my mum, so this combination of images, letters, and talking to my mum, and the songs themselves, in combining that together that the show came."

The production proved a hit in Bright's native New Zealand, has been picked up for a feature film adaptation (which Bright is at this moment writing), and will travel to Australia and the UK this year.

Bright says that while some of the music (a collection of NZ artists that spans Crowded House to The Mint Chicks, reinterpreted by Stephanie Brown and performed by a live three-piece band) that drives the work proved unfamiliar to international audiences at February's Australian Performing Arts Market, the love story transcended boundaries.

"You never have any idea how a work will translate, and particularly because it's based on real people and their real life, so it's a very authentically Kiwi story... But I think there's something about that way of growing up from the '60s onwards that parallels between working class rural families in Australia and New Zealand — which is why I think we share so much of our music together.

"It's quite a heartbreaker," Bright concedes, "so at the end of the day, I think the love story connects universally."